We love good Halloween pranks (see the Carrie prank that went viral on this here blog thingy in early October), and Tom Mabe's annual set-up for the holiday never fails to disappoint. For his 2013 prank, however, Mabe's use of a better designed costume, skin-crawling shrieks and the art of surprise has lead to his best Halloween video yet.

Check it out as a ghastly ghoul runs up behind joggers and other park visitors, issues a blood curdling shriek and leaves the unwitting participants running for their lives:

Tom Mabe RULES. I believe he's the same guy about 10 years ago that released a CD where he's pranking phone solicitors, great stuff. Particularly when a carpet cleaner calls to sell him a special and he's implying he just killed someone and needed them to come over to clean up the blood stain in the carpet.

If this thing can hover in place, and not just fly around like an airplane, this dude will make MILLIONS from professional theatre companies. I hope he has a patent, and is on the phone to Disney right now.

People can sue about anything, law on their side or not. and lawyers' opinions are based upon which ever interpretation of the law that might put the most amount of money in their pockets. The scary part of being sued is having to pay $10,000 to defend yourself, right or wrong. This is one of the greatest dampers for free expression in corporate-controlled Amerika.

The REALLY SCARY part of this post...is the arm chair lawyers!! They must be from California*geeesh* - like those who want to ban firework shows because "the noise scares me". Get Real, the government is spying on you All The Time, and they ARE in it for profit...And Your Soul!

And when a video is released on YouTube and certain other video and blog sites, many people have For Profit accounts set up via the allowed advertising on those pages (there are some people who make hundreds of thousands a year on YouTube just posting videos all year long), so in this case, a release, once again, would be needed.

Not true - if there is filming of some kind in a public space, they put up signs letting people know they are filming and that if they decide to walk through the space, it is considered consent - but the signs must be there.

When people are in a public space, they’ve already forfeited some of their right to privacy–getting a release is an extra precaution though. The signs are not required, unless you are filming in a location where entrances and exits are fairly restricted, such as a cemetery (notice there is no one in the cemetery shots?). Generally, as long as the images of people aren’t offensive, defamatory or unreasonably invade their privacy, you don’t have to get every person sign a release. Think of it this way: if it were totally illegal to take images of people un public, the nightly news would never be able to show street footage.

Here's the thing I see with this video in particular: with the exception of the first shot, with the two joggers (likely the filmer's friends), the people in the video are not readily recognizable. The four people I had in the room with me when we watched this, could not all give similarly accurate descriptions of each person. This plays in favor, in particular, of the filming of the children's soccer game. First, they are in public; second, none of the children can be easily recognized... which would be tantamount to blurring their faces if they were more prominently featured.

None of us can truly know the details behind each shot here, though we can all speculate. Generally speaking, the law is behind Mr. Mabe in terms of filming, even for profit, as long as people aren't prominently featured.

Really Anonymous? Not true, according to my lawyer. don't you ever notice on some hidden camera shows that when they're outside in a public place, many other people's faces are blurred out? That's because those people did not sign a consent and the producers did not put out the aforementioned sign.

Wow, are you in this guys video? Why are you so concerned about it and connecting a lawyer about a funny video someone put out. No he doesn't need to get signed releases from people in public places. If you're so worried about don't go to the beach or park with your kids and video tape them cause you'll have people you don't know in the shots and you'll have to blur their faces or get sued for having them on your recording of your kids having a good time.

So you're saying that news programs get releases from every passerby on the street when they are reporting there? Does CNN get release forms from everyone at Times Square during New Years? No they do not, because these are public spaces.

Ask your lawyer about "Expectation of Privacy." Hidden camera shows are for-profit. They're blurring out the people due them not being contractually affiliated with the show (paid extra, staff, whatever). It's generally not to protect the people, but to prevent the network from paying people. At the end of the day...one walking one the street/public space has no expectation of privacy and a camera operator can take the footage and do what he/she chooses at no legal consequence. The footage/images are property of the people taking it...period. How do you think that paparazzi get away with as much as they do?